


morning, afternoon, sunset

by Ladybug_21



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24459133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: The last day of the trial is the first day of something new for Jocelyn and Maggie.
Relationships: Jocelyn Knight/Maggie Radcliffe, Maggie Radcliffe & Olly Stevens
Comments: 10
Kudos: 108





	morning, afternoon, sunset

**Author's Note:**

> Occasionally, my friend and I will rant at each other for a while on a Saturday afternoon about the attractive nuisance that is Olly Stevens. And apparently, this sometimes results in a story about Olly Stevens being an idiot, sandwiched between some Jocelyn Knight/Maggie Radcliffe feels. I own no rights to _Broadchurch_.

Sunlight through the window wakes Jocelyn on the morning of the last day of the trial, slowly, so that it takes the barrister a few moments to realise that Maggie's hand is on her hip. The journalist's touch is light but solid, the pressure gentle but so real, so present. A bright band of sun shimmers across Maggie's sleeping face, and Jocelyn watches her for a minute, marvelling at the simple beauty of Maggie's breathing and how it makes Jocelyn's duvet rise and fall in a steady rhythm.

(Maggie does not stir. Unlike Jocelyn, she's accustomed to waking up with someone else in her bed. She's even more accustomed to ignoring lovers and partners who wake up before her, and although Jocelyn is special, she's no exception here.)

Jocelyn knows that she should be thinking about the trial; normally, if a jury were scheduled to give a verdict in a few hours, her mind would be frantic with anxiety from the moment she awoke. But she lets herself savour this moment a little longer, lets herself sink into silent, overwhelming gratitude at finally ( _finally_ ) letting herself love and be loved like this. And, whenever Jocelyn begins edging too close to the brink of regret, she pulls herself away. There's nothing that she can do to change the past fifteen years. But lying here in the morning sunlight with Maggie, Jocelyn dares to believe that there will be a tomorrow for them, and a tomorrow after that.

Tentatively, Jocelyn reaches out a hand and ever so lightly presses the tips of her fingers against Maggie's cheek, to reassure herself that it isn't all just a dream. Maggie's eyes flutter open at Jocelyn's touch, and she stretches, the comforting weight of her hand finally lifting from Jocelyn's hip.

"Morning, petal," she says with a smile that's enough to break Jocelyn's heart. "How are you feeling?"

Jocelyn, for all her typical eloquence, can't find the words to express everything she's feeling. She lets her hand rest against Maggie's cheek and simply stares at her, smiling, and Maggie understands the silence just as well as speech.

"Well, best get up and face the day, whatever happens," Maggie sighs. She kisses Jocelyn's palm, and, when she sees the look in Jocelyn's eyes, leans forward and kisses her on the mouth, soft and tender. "Later, Jocelyn," she promises when Jocelyn puts a hand on her shoulder, a wordless plea not to leave just yet. "Need to grab some things at home and at the office before court. But I promise we'll celebrate after the trial's over."

Jocelyn watches from bed as Maggie slips out from under the covers and makes her way around Jocelyn's bedroom, retrieving all of her clothes in whatever order she happens across them and then pulling them all back on.

"Maggie," Jocelyn says when she's almost out the door, but when Maggie pauses, Jocelyn isn't sure what she even wants to say. Anything that could so much as approximate her feelings would still fall short, risk sounding trite.

"Good luck today, love," Maggie says, blowing Jocelyn a kiss. And as Jocelyn listens to Maggie's footsteps on the stairs and the opening and closing of her front door, Jocelyn knows that she's already the luckiest woman alive.

* * *

"You're late," Olly tells Maggie when she appears in the atrium of the courthouse.

"I'm not _late_ ," Maggie scoffs, "we've still got five minutes before the courtroom doors open."

Her hair, although towelled off, is still a bit damp from a shower. Olly's keen eyes take this in.

"Well, late for _you_ ," he argues back. "What happened to that thing you used to always say—about a good journalist arriving at least fifteen minutes early to any event, to beat the crowds and watch things unroll from before the start?"

"Oliver," sighs Maggie, rolling her eyes, "would it astound you to hear that I'm only human?"

Olly is about to respond, but at that moment, the counsel for the defence stride through the atrium, conversing in low voices. Maggie watches how Abby Thompson shoots Olly a sly little smirk as she passes, how the younger journalist flinches just a touch. And something clicks into place.

"Olly," she growls in a dangerous voice as soon as Abby Thompson and Sharon Bishop are out of earshot.

"What?" says Olly, his expression apprehensive.

"You know, I've been asking myself something," Maggie begins. "About your mum, and that cheque that your aunt wrote her, and exactly _how_ the defence knew about it."

If she weren't so livid, Maggie would laugh at how truly terrible Olly's poker face is.

"How do you mean?" he stammers.

"If I find out that you told that junior barrister..."

"Why would I tell her?" Olly insists, unconvincingly.

"For god's sake, petal, you think I haven't noticed the way you've been flirting with her every time you come within a ten-foot radius?"

"I didn't tell her!" Olly maintains. "I didn't, Maggie, I swear. I can't help it if she somehow... found out."

"What do you mean, 'found out'? People don't leave information relating to those sorts of sums just lying about in _public_ for everyone to..." Maggie cuts herself off as the obvious hits her. "Christ, Olly, tell me you didn't."

Olly guiltily looks down at the ground.

"Look, if I had known..."

"How could you have been so stupid?" Maggie hisses at him. "Shagging one of the barristers in the middle of the trial?"

"Come on, Maggie," Olly finally retorts, raising his head and glancing at her damp hair before staring her straight in the eye. "Not like I haven't been watching you, too. Are you honestly gonna tell me you haven't been shagging Jocelyn Knight?"

" _I_ don't live in the same house as one of the key witnesses, and Jocelyn never comes round to my place, anyway," Maggie counters. "Jesus. Well, let's see what happens today. But I hope you're ready to feel a right idiot, if this entire case falls apart because of your inability to keep your trousers zipped."

The doors to the courtroom open, and Maggie storms in, Olly sheepishly following. Maggie is still fuming over Olly's misstep even minutes later, but then Jocelyn enters the courtroom, resplendent in her black robe and her white collar and her wig, the very picture of a Queen's Counsel. And Maggie's heart flutters slightly as she realises that she hasn't denied Olly's charge of having slept with the prosecutor, because as of today, she can't. Cross as she is with her protégé, that fact keeps Maggie buoyed throughout the remainder of the trial—at least until the verdict comes down.

* * *

The gin is strong on Jocelyn's tongue. She mostly drinks wine these days, and her palate has become too delicate for this sort of thing, but this evening it feels right, to let the harshness of hard liquor scour her taste buds. Shot through with the gold of sunset, the sea wind whips stingingly across her cheeks, and Jocelyn feels she deserves it. She lets her question to Maggie about the Latimers linger on the currents of the breeze, wondering if she dares to ask the question that's truly haunting her.

Jocelyn has failed. Failed the Latimers, failed their little boy, failed the entire grief-stricken community. She's lost trials before, of course; but in the chaos of London, any loss is muffled by the sheer volume of cases on the court calendar, any embarrassment can be redeemed by the next big win. In the microcosm of Broadchurch, by contrast, a single loss reverberates. Nothing like this is bound to happen around here again anytime soon, or so Jocelyn can only pray. There will be no chance for redemption. And although Maggie is sitting here with her, offering her gin and sympathy, the certainty with which Jocelyn had viewed the future that morning now rests on shaky ground.

"I have a confession to make," Maggie sighs finally. "About Olly, my junior reporter."

"Oh?"

"I tried to find you while the jury was deliberating. Not that it would have changed things, if you knew then. He invited Abby Thompson over to his mother's house. That's how she found out about the cheque, just from being able to nose around Lucy Stevens's place."

Jocelyn nods, trying to hide her displeasure. She had warned Maggie about Olly's recklessness, long before any of this, but she won't be so cruel as to bring that fact back up.

"I thought you should know." Maggie takes the gin from Jocelyn and tosses back another swig. "God, I feel like I've let you down."

"No." Jocelyn shakes her head, still facing away from Maggie. "No, you couldn't have known, Maggie. You couldn't have stopped him." Because this unforgivable error has nothing to do with Olly's being a journalist; he might have pursued Abby Thompson simply in his capacity as an observer to the trial. It's not Maggie's fault that her employee's foolishness has caused such damage—at least, not this time.

"Yeah." Maggie's voice catches a bit on her laugh. "Well, I can't say how glad I am to hear you say that. I know I've made mistakes in the past, when it comes to Olly. I was so afraid you'd never forgive me for this one, too."

Jocelyn doesn't reply. They've never openly discussed Jocelyn's anger over how Maggie let Karen White set up shop in Broadchurch, did nothing to stop her and Olly from hounding Jack Marshall into a premature grave. But Jocelyn decided long before yesterday that it was more than worth the difficult effort of learning to forgive Maggie for that tragic failing. Her mind hasn't changed on that count. And the fact that Maggie cares so much about Jocelyn's forgiveness fills her with cautious hope.

"As long as you're willing to forgive me," she tells Maggie in a soft voice, her back still turned. "For letting everyone down like this."

"Oh, petal," Maggie laughs wearily. "There's nothing to forgive. You go to war with the army you're given. And, well, you couldn't help it if all of your troops decided to hand their ammunition right over to the enemy. No one's blaming you but yourself, I can assure you. Least of all me."

Jocelyn relaxes with a small sigh of relief, and she leans back against Maggie.

"I was afraid..." Jocelyn hesitates. "I was afraid that whatever you might have felt, last night and this morning, might have been lost forever. That you wouldn't see me as the same person, after what happened this afternoon."

"I bothered seeking you out all the way over here among these boats with a bottle of gin, didn't I?" Maggie wraps her arm around Jocelyn's waist and props her chin on the barrister's shoulder. "No one's perfect, not even you. And after all this time, I _know_ who you are, Jocelyn. The outcome of one case or another isn't going to change what I think. Can't you trust that my feelings for you are considerably less fickle than that?"

"Then you wouldn't be ashamed? To be seen with the woman who failed to put Joe Miller behind bars?"

"I'd _never_ be ashamed to be seen with you," Maggie vows. "But if we're going to make this work, you have to promise me the same. No more living any lies—from here on out, it's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If you want this as much as I want it, promise me that much?"

Heady elation swells within Jocelyn's chest. She swings her legs down from atop the boat, so that she's now sitting next to Maggie, and she smiles at the journalist.

"I do," she says, and for the second evening in a row, she kisses Maggie Radcliffe out in the open, along the sunset-drenched coast of Dorset, both of their mouths tasting of gin. As the golden light begins to dim, the two walk back into town together, hand in hand for anyone to see.


End file.
